The second I got back into town I promptly caught a cold (thank you old coughing man on plane!), so it's taken a few days to get my head clear enough to do anything (except Twitter, of course).

Anyway...

Fitbloggin' 10 was fantastic! And to think, Roni Noone of Roni's Weigh had never organized a blog convention before this. We certainly couldn't tell.

Baltimore is one of my all-time fave cities, so deciding to go was a no-brainer. Even better was getting to finally meet in person some of my favorite healthy-living bloggers.

Icing on the (rice)cake?

The New Balance walking shoes, socks and shorts. Walking that predawn mile was great fun, and it wasn't as cold as I thought it would be.

My groovy new Gruve device, which tracks my movements and gooses me when I need to move my butt (it's doing it now).

The Fitbloggin' commemorative T-shirt from thriv, made from a comfy blend of bamboo and cotton.

All the other samples, coupons, bags, bowls and whatnot that made my suitcase fall over in exhaustion on Sunday.

More highlights:

The Friday cocktail party was a blast, and that one Pomtini went straight to my head (the only time I can refer to myself as a lightweight in anything).

Roni put together a great list of speakers for Saturday, and every last
seminar was thought-provoking and useful.

I finally got to meet Melissa McNeese in person, someone who I've e-mailed and tweeted for years. (She was the person responsible for the 10-Minute Solution DVD table.) I said to more than a few people that Fitbloggin' was like 100 blind dates.

A group of us went to dinner with Lyndsay and Nicole from Weight Watchers and had a great discussion about everything under the sun. The poor waiter couldn't get a word in edgewise.

I also got in a lot of exercise -- a Friday hotel gym workout, Saturday morning's 1-mile walk and another mile walk in the afternoon, Sunday morning's yoga class and a final 3-mile walk to Camden Yards and back. My Gruve was very happy.

I was inspired to exercise, eat healthy foods, and rethink what I've been writing and who I've been hanging out with online.

I decided to devote more time to Shrinking Sisters (this place) and to keep the focus on writing meaningful stuff for Examiner (the other place). I decided long ago that I wasn't going to chase down pageviews by writing garbage about various Kardashians and Snookies.

I friended and followed lots of great, like-minded bloggers when I got back. Conversely I pared down my Facebook and Twitter lists of people who I just don't have time for anymore. I met so many writers with a healthy, balanced attitude toward food and fitness that I don't need to waste my time with people who think certain food groups are evil.

I switched my food tracking back to Weight Watchers, and realized that having a finite number of Points works better for me than having an open-ended calorie count. Counting down the Points seems to work better for me than adding up the calories. And in the months that I've been away from the Weight Watchers site it's gotten a lot better and faster.

I'm also not going to stress about working out. I'm taking the theory of "diet for weight loss, exercise for health" and running walking with it. I have a crappy cold right now and I'm fighting off the guilt of not exercising. But it's OK -- when I can breathe again, I'll workout.

I'm making my online life and my real life less toxic, and I can't wait until next year's Fitbloggin!

Comments

The second I got back into town I promptly caught a cold (thank you old coughing man on plane!), so it's taken a few days to get my head clear enough to do anything (except Twitter, of course).

Anyway...

Fitbloggin' 10 was fantastic! And to think, Roni Noone of Roni's Weigh had never organized a blog convention before this. We certainly couldn't tell.

Baltimore is one of my all-time fave cities, so deciding to go was a no-brainer. Even better was getting to finally meet in person some of my favorite healthy-living bloggers.

Icing on the (rice)cake?

The New Balance walking shoes, socks and shorts. Walking that predawn mile was great fun, and it wasn't as cold as I thought it would be.

My groovy new Gruve device, which tracks my movements and gooses me when I need to move my butt (it's doing it now).

The Fitbloggin' commemorative T-shirt from thriv, made from a comfy blend of bamboo and cotton.

All the other samples, coupons, bags, bowls and whatnot that made my suitcase fall over in exhaustion on Sunday.

More highlights:

The Friday cocktail party was a blast, and that one Pomtini went straight to my head (the only time I can refer to myself as a lightweight in anything).

Roni put together a great list of speakers for Saturday, and every last
seminar was thought-provoking and useful.

I finally got to meet Melissa McNeese in person, someone who I've e-mailed and tweeted for years. (She was the person responsible for the 10-Minute Solution DVD table.) I said to more than a few people that Fitbloggin' was like 100 blind dates.

A group of us went to dinner with Lyndsay and Nicole from Weight Watchers and had a great discussion about everything under the sun. The poor waiter couldn't get a word in edgewise.

I also got in a lot of exercise -- a Friday hotel gym workout, Saturday morning's 1-mile walk and another mile walk in the afternoon, Sunday morning's yoga class and a final 3-mile walk to Camden Yards and back. My Gruve was very happy.

I was inspired to exercise, eat healthy foods, and rethink what I've been writing and who I've been hanging out with online.

I decided to devote more time to Shrinking Sisters (this place) and to keep the focus on writing meaningful stuff for Examiner (the other place). I decided long ago that I wasn't going to chase down pageviews by writing garbage about various Kardashians and Snookies.

I friended and followed lots of great, like-minded bloggers when I got back. Conversely I pared down my Facebook and Twitter lists of people who I just don't have time for anymore. I met so many writers with a healthy, balanced attitude toward food and fitness that I don't need to waste my time with people who think certain food groups are evil.

I switched my food tracking back to Weight Watchers, and realized that having a finite number of Points works better for me than having an open-ended calorie count. Counting down the Points seems to work better for me than adding up the calories. And in the months that I've been away from the Weight Watchers site it's gotten a lot better and faster.

I'm also not going to stress about working out. I'm taking the theory of "diet for weight loss, exercise for health" and running walking with it. I have a crappy cold right now and I'm fighting off the guilt of not exercising. But it's OK -- when I can breathe again, I'll workout.

I'm making my online life and my real life less toxic, and I can't wait until next year's Fitbloggin!